I see a lifelong pattern

[Parents! Get help here!]

When my dd was young she cried sick/pain and I was off to the ER advocating like crazy for her  (mind you she did have a physical condition that could have gone sideways fairly quickly)

When she wanted to join a group/club etc I rearranged my life and finances to make it happen (they were always honorable endeavors)

In other words she knew how to get me to respond to her quickly and fully.

Last year I laid the 'law"  She could not move back in unless she started in counseling.

every time she was hungry/wanted a bed/ or just a reaction to me she promised to go to counseling.

I stopped responding to the 'c' word because she never followed through and she stopped using it.

This summer she started in with the physical ailments.  I stopped responding - telling her to call 911 and all her pains have disappeared over the last 5 months.


Well we just moved her out of her abusive boyfriends house last week.  SHe can be at home when I am there and all her stuff is in the garage.  Well in the last week I've noted that everytime she doesnt get what she wants she says she's moving back i him with. I've stopped responding totally to the 'bf'word.


It's all been about getting the attention (she was an only child and and always had a thousand perecent of me) the reaction and the response from me.  It doesnt solve anything for her only makes me more aware of when and when not to respons.

And just for fun guessing what the next "word" will be.

[twojaybirds]

When my dd was young she cried sick/pain and I was off to the ER advocating like crazy for her  (mind you she did have a physical condition that could have gone sideways fairly quickly)

When she wanted to join a group/club etc I rearranged my life and finances to make it happen (they were always honorable endeavors)

In other words she knew how to get me to respond to her quickly and fully.

Last year I laid the 'law"  She could not move back in unless she started in counseling.

every time she was hungry/wanted a bed/ or just a reaction to me she promised to go to counseling.

I stopped responding to the 'c' word because she never followed through and she stopped using it.

This summer she started in with the physical ailments.  I stopped responding - telling her to call 911 and all her pains have disappeared over the last 5 months.


Well we just moved her out of her abusive boyfriends house last week.  SHe can be at home when I am there and all her stuff is in the garage.  Well in the last week I've noted that everytime she doesnt get what she wants she says she's moving back i him with. I've stopped responding totally to the 'bf'word.


It's all been about getting the attention (she was an only child and and always had a thousand perecent of me) the reaction and the response from me.  It doesnt solve anything for her only makes me more aware of when and when not to respons.

And just for fun guessing what the next "word" will be.

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[qcarolr]

Sure feels like it never ends - the cycles, the neediness they keep putting back on family. I am trying to think before I answer/respond - you are a good example for me. Interesting that when we step out of the way, they can find solutions. Even if they do an awful lot of whining getting there.

qcr   

[jellibeans]

twojaybirds

I think that is it... . how to change the patterns... . that is key... . how to stop the cycle... . I am still trying here and I guess if we just keep that in mind then I think we are all on the right track... . sending you a hug... .  

[js friend]

I have seen a dramtic improvement in my dd's behaviour since I have been out of the FOG.

Just like you tjb I have been my dd's strongest advocate... . I always tried to fix everything.

When she was lonely or bored, said she was disliked or bullied ,had problems at work, r/s problems with friends, b/f... . I tried to fix it all... . Money,time, finding new groups and actvities,endless meetings... . I believed dd's words over many others which Iam ashamed of now.  

It took me awhile to realise that dd didnt always tell the truth and she was actually the one who was at the centre of most of drama(apart from the bullying at school) and she needed to find her own solutions.

As I came out of the FOG dd's response was to tell everyone who would listen that I didnt care about her. The worse years so far were when dd was 15yo-17yo,. An absolute nightmare 2 years that I would never want to relive.

Change was hard for both of us but it saved our r/s and it has been so worth it!


Stick to your boundries tjb and it will pay off.

[Thursday]

hello friends,



I've been reading and thinking and this thread caught my eye.

twojaybirds sees a lifelong pattern. Me too. It's clear that unless something TRULY changes our person with BPD is stuck in their patterns. The change really needs to come from her and she isn't there yet. Flashes of clarity are short lived at best.

The current pattern for my BPDSD21 is to avoid taking financial responsibility for her self. She hasn't had a job for going on eight months. Some weeks she lies, says she is looking hard for work, maybe she admits it's only online, some weeks she is convinced that she is fine as is, this, I'm willing to bet, is after someone has given her money. Lately, people must be tired of this as she is "working" for several friends, taking care of pets, driving them to meetings for pay. She came over on Memorial day and raked leaves for us for 20.00 and we know that she had a check for 25.00 that she couldn't cash due to bank holiday. She always has cigarettes and enough to eat and enough gas to drive her car to meetings all over our large city. She posts pictures of her nearly daily grande Starbucks  drink on facebook. Those drinks aren't free!

She involves herself in other people's drama. She claims she hates drama but is at the center of it. She lives with extended family, rather sleeps there when no friends will give her a bed or a couch for the night. She doesn't follow the rules of the house there, same as she would not follow them here. Family's patience is growing thin. She is wearing out a very tolerant grandmother.

We still pay her car insurance, she still drives the car that is legally ours, she still has health insurance paid by us and she still has a smart phone with internet service that we pay. She purchased this phone with money from a short lived job (spent her first paycheck on this phone). The phone is wrecked now, broken screen, cover is trashed (how does she do this much damage to a phone so quickly? ) We are now considering when to tell her that soon we will provide her with nothing more than a cheap prepaid phone so that we can talk to her but no more internet for her on our phone bill. It's not a lot of money but that is hardly the point, at this point.

There are other folks enabling her as well as us.    She visits to get money, she does chores to earn this money. It's not a lot of money and the chores make her sweaty. I enjoy that  . I don't think we should give her ANY money (OK too with no chores) but her Dad does it anyway. I accept that his way is different from mine.

She is sober and that is to be commended, which we do, couldn't avoid doing if our life depended on it. She has a bragging habit. She has done her 12 steps capriciously. "Thursday, one of the 12 steps is I have to say I'm sorry to people I have wronged. So, Thursday, I'm sorry for the wrongs I have done to you."   

Let me say it again, she IS SOBER. Without her sobriety things would be hopeless.

And OH- her smile is radiant! She is much loved by certain folks, and  she looks much younger than her years and when she wants the little girl grin just dazzles folks around her.

On the other hand, she can go from babytalk to cursing like a thug.  She hangs around socially with someone that we have heard her wish dead. (This woman is in her circle and pays rent on the apartment where SD usually crashes... . so it's very strange to hear her talking about this woman so disparagingly when this woman is so generous with her)

She would like for people to see her as a happy, positive, upbeat person. Behind closed doors she cuts up her arms. She is bitter and mean when anyone crosses her, even inadvertently.

She is never straightforward. The people in her life are in different camps- those you hide the truth from, others you hide yourself from and those who let you be yourself but only the loud, reckless, brassy version. I've had glimpses of the real deal. I love that girl. She is a great person and I feel like she is so afraid of feeling authentic that we have lost that great person for good. Her brain seems to have atrophied. She is the youtube version of my SD, a looped thirty second punch line... . and someone gets kicked in the testicles! yuck-yuck.


twojaybirds, we did so much of the "quitting" and "stopping" and she still involves others in attention getting and malingering behaviors. We see definite cycling in this. If she is doing well and her enablers aren't lecturing and giving negative attention she will get "sick". If she isn't doing well, there is a cycle that evolves so that her ailment is scary to others and she will amp things up to avoid facing what people are upset with her about. There is a need to be rescued and she sort of has a rescuer at the ready in her interpersonal relationships.  Recently, someone got over strident in their rescuing of her and she ended up in the emergency room for a temp of 101.  WE advised her to take Tylenol and go to bed.  She involved someone else to take her to the ER but they then abandoned her there and she had to call others to beg a ride home. When she called us for advice her Dad was clear with her that he couldn't help her with a trip to or from the ER.

I too am understanding that her future doesn't sound very stable (grown up) if things keep going the way they are going. She openly states, as if this is normal, that she doesn't want to grow up. As if it's an option. I also understand that my involvement doesn't seem to make much of an impact. It doesn't seem like anything we offer seems attractive or worthwhile to her. There is a strong element of fear that runs through her psyche- fear to reveal herself, fear of rejection is very strong. She is heavy handed with "I LOVE YOU". To the point of rendering those words meaningless. Sigh.

She is my step-daughter, I came on scene when she was 14, already entrenched in this stuff, I have less, so much less invested in this relationship than you Moms here. I would have cherished something better than what we have. I was open to it, I am broken hearted that I have had so little impact on her life, have helped her so little. More, I am heartbroken that my husband will never have with SD the close, clear, clean relationship that I have with my bioDD28. It's a shame as he has so much to offer her and he loves her so deeply.

I will always hope she can get better. We've done and still do what we can. It's harder for my husband though as he struggles with acceptance that he can't change the situation with her by simply wanting it changed and that even though he talks the talk and walks the walk she refuses to join him. 

Till whenever, it's a holding pattern with high hopes that there won't be another catastrophe around the next corner.

Thursday

[qcarolr]

Thursday --   

You sound so discouraged today. This is a hard topic - a tough reality to accept. The acceptance for me is that I am powerless over another human, and filled with love unconditionally for this person, and grieve the conflicts that are also part of the acceptance. Seems so much harder for my dh too -- he has hung onto his avoidance and denial longer than I have.

My    is with you.

qcr  

[peaceandhope]

Thursday,

When I was reading your comment, I felt I was reading about my dd. Your sd and my dd will hit off well  

 

[Thursday]

If I sound discouraged, well, maybe I am. We have come so far, my husband and me, to deal with her more productively. BUT... .

The acceptance for me is that I am powerless over another human, and filled with love unconditionally for this person, and grieve the conflicts that are also part of the acceptance

I am flat out sick of the grief. We will be rolling along and boom, the phone rings, too late to be anyone else in our life. She always rings her Dad's cell phone and I can tell from some subtle nuance of her tone that she is agitated, upset, dysregulated, someplace specific in the endless cycle of her endless cycles. I can't hear her words, just her tone sounding muffled from him holding the phone to his ear, but the meanings are unmistakable.

I accept that I am powerless. I am filled with unconditional love. I accept that she is ill. I accept that she won't take her medicine (do therapy, get some sleep, avoid drama, etc.) It is the lather, rinse and repeat of her complaints and problems that bring me to this point of discouragement.

Right at the moment, if I had to write a sentence to shout out to her from a mountaintop, I would say,

"What are you so afraid of?" I see others with so much less doing so much more and making some sort of a way through life.

I have a family member with MS. She is in a wheelchair. A few days ago I was talking to her about the difficulties she faces with wheelchair access - now that my husband is using a wheelchair for certain situations due to his broken knee, I can understand her frustrations better. She told me she went to donate blood the morning I spoke to her and she couldn't get into the doorway by herself- someone had to come and lift her chair over a step or she would have had to leave without donating. Here she is almost blind and very debilitated with MS and she still donates blood!

My SD sells plasma to buy cigarettes. And she calls her Dad to complain about it every time she sells her plasma, about how much it hurts and how much time it takes etc. 

Bah... .

t

[qcarolr]

Thursday - this is why it is good DD27 prefers to text. she never answers call or voice msg.  Then I can give one of those general "bummer" validation phrases. and move on with my day. don't get the tone.easier to not get my buttons triggered.

maybe the hardest part in communication is to truly not get our emotions triggered - your dh seems to still struggle with the 'my poor little girl' feelings. still thinking his love outpouring can effect her choices. he has to move to letting go of this at his own pace. Can you step back from your dh and give some of those 'bummer' phrases to him? let go of his needs?

qcr  

[trytrytry]

Two Jay Birds,

You have articulated the story of my DD27 and me.  Sounded like myself talking!  Best wishes for us all on this neverending

road.